W Robert Griffiths QC

Date of call: 1974 Middle Temple
Year of silk: 1993

Full CV

WRG (PDF 170 kb)

W Robert Griffiths QC is Joint Head of Chambers and a Middle Temple Bencher. He has an inter-disciplinary practice across a range of specialist areas including planning, local government, property, environmental, public, judicial review, commercial, employment and sports law both in the UK and overseas.

He has appeared in a large number of high profile cases including; Abse v Smith (barristers’ rights of audience), The Strangeways Inquiry (prison riots), The Rose Theatre (preservation of an ancient monument, locus standi), Marsal v Apong (the Sultan of Brunei and the Brunei Constitution), Darrell Hair v ICC (fairness and discrimination).

He successfully promoted both the New Forest and the South Downs National Parks.

Specialist experience in the field of sports venue development, staging agreements and broadcasting rights. These include the Millennium Stadium, Lord's Cricket Ground, Old Trafford, The Oval, Brighton Football Club and Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Clients have included Muhammed Ali, The Sultan of Brunei, Kerry Packer.
Currently Chairman of the MCC Development Committee (responsible for a major re-development of Lord’s Cricket Ground).

He is a Special Advocate and a Special Adviser to the Prince’s Regeneration Trust.
He is also a member of Selborne-Wentworth Chambers (Sydney) and Senior Counsel (New South Wales).

EDUCATION
St Edmund Hall, Oxford (Open Scholar, MA, BCL)

APPOINTMENTS
Special Adviser to the Prince’s Regeneration Trust 2007
Master of the Bench (Middle Temple) 2004
Special Advocate 2004
Senior Counsel (New South Wales) 1999
Queen’s Counsel 1993
Junior Counsel to the Crown (Common Law) 1989 to 1993
Called to the Bar 1974

PERSONAL
Member of the MCC Committee 2000, Chairman of the MCC Laws Sub-Committee 2008, Member of the MCC Cricket Committee 2008, Member of the MCC World Cricket Committee 2008, Chairman of the MCC Development Committee (Vision for Lord’s) 2008, Member of the Garrick Club.

CASES OF NOTE

• Wolverhampton City Council (2010) (major regeneration schemes in Canalside Quarter, Wolverhampton)
• HSE v Wolverhampton City Council (2009) (hazardous instillations and the control of development)
• Metro Construction Ltd. v London Borough of Barnet [2009] EWHC 2956 (Admin) (quashing a Conservation Area designation)
• Re Dianoor International (2009) (due diligence of a pawnbroker, money laundering)
• Club 54 2009 (licensing and planning issues relating to a nightclub)
  Lords Cricket Ground (2009) (ongoing major re-development of the iconic venue and adjacent residential site)

AFFILIATIONS
ALBA
COMBAR
PEBA

OTHER BARS
New South Wales
Brunei

SCHOLARSHIPS
Open Scholarship

LANGUAGES
French

CIRCUITS
South Eastern

DIRECTORY ENTRIES
Legal 500, 2009:
Recommended leader in Employment Law: "..first rate advice” (2008); Environmental Law; Media/Entertainment & Sport and Planning Law.

Chambers & Partners, 2009:
Recommended leader in Sports Law.

Legal Experts, 2010:
Leading expert in Environmental Law

CLERKS EMAIL
Michael Kaplan and Elliot Langdorf